Storybook Stack. I'm still working my way through the large stack of Storybook assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment before 8PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in later on Sunday or on Monday or Tuesday, your assignment is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. If you want to check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here.
Week 7 Internet assignment. (repeat announcement) For the Week 7 Internet assignment, which is available now, you will be reading stories at the Storybooks. That means you have more reading to do this time (stories and introductions), so you will have just THREE Storybooks that you comment on. You are welcome to do that assignment now; you don't have to wait if a person you are assigned happens not to have published a story yet. To find out more about how the assignment works this week, see the Internet assignment page.
Commenting on Storybooks. (repeat announcement) Every week from now through Week 12 of the semester, you will be commenting on people's writing at their Storybooks. During these weeks as you comment on people's Storybooks, please provide as much detailed, specific feedback as possible! It's nice to get compliments, but it is also really good to get feedback about what things could be improved, especially now, early in the semester. So, do not hesitate to say when something is confusing, or when something seems repetitious, or if you think something is important is missing. Every semester, students tell me that they wish they had received more detailed feedback on their Storybooks, rather than just generic compliments - find out more about Good Feedback: Details, Details, Details!
Writing Tip Wednesday. For this week's writing tip, I wanted to share a link to this article about choosing names, and the article also includes a handy name generator: Character Name Generator for Creative Writers. If you Google "name generators," you can also find all kinds of specialized name generators for specific types of characters. They can be a lot of fun, and very useful, too!
Wednesday Events on Campus. Karen Antell of OU Libraries will be presenting a seminar on Library Tricks from 4PM-5PM in the Academic Services Center, 245 Wagner Hall (time/location/details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.
October 3: Gore Vidal. Friday, October 3, marks the birthday in the year 1925 of the great American author, Gore Vidal who died just last year. You can read more about Gore Vidal's life and career in this Wikipedia article. My favorite of his novels is without a doubt his historical novel Julian, about the 4th-century emperor Julian, nicknamed "Julian the Apostate," the last of the pagan emperors of Rome. I am also a big fan of another of his historical novels, Creation. Here is the cover of a recent edition of Julian:
